“If you watch enough movies sometimes the most startling visions come in the smallest packages. The craft of filmmaking is dependent on attention to detail-beginning with script and character development, which translates to picture and sound, which is edited and mixed into a massive universe of blood, sweat, and tears that can be viewed on the same machine you play Gran Turismo 3, if one so chooses…”

“X-Files fans might jump at the chance to see Gillian Anderson behaving quite unlike Agent Scully in this petrified forest of a costume drama. Based on the novel by Edith Wharton, “The House of Mirth” is a masterfully acted, superbly crafted bore, much like the other Wharton adaptation of note, Scorcese’s “The Age of Innocence…”

“Director Kore-eda brings a documentary feel to this allegorical, imaginative vision of the afterlife. The premise is deceptively simple: upon death each person spends three days in limbo, which looks more like an abandoned high school than any pearly gates. During your three-day tour you are given the task of selecting one memory from your life: the most important, meaningful moment you experienced on earth. Upon selection, you are transported to a heavenly place where you will spend eternity with that, and only that, memory…”

“If you get close enough to another person the two of you will often develop a secret speech pattern-a soft, sensitive tone that comes out subconsciously when you are sharing your most comfortable, precious moments. If it accidentally emerges in the presence of outsiders it sounds like baby-talk, but when it’s just the two of you it sounds perfect. Chambers sounds perfect…”

“I have discovered where Tom Cochrane has been hiding the last little while. He’s gone to the 7 ½ floor of the Skydome Hotel, pushed aside the mini-bar and crawled inside the brain of one, Ryan Adams. He got Ron Sexsmith to crawl in there with him too, adding the exquisite song structure that ol’ Red Rider could never quite muster. The result is Gold, an impossibly good record with absolutely no Can-Con….”